to think that there should be a warning on self-published books on Amazon, so that...

[ElizaPickford]

... you don't end up spending actual money on the biggest pile of self indulgent, unedited, garbled bollocks by someone with the writing ability of an eight year old?

My poor DH recently bought me a book as a gift because it was about a subject I'm interested in and at a glance it had 5 stars and great reviews. I was looking forward to reading it, but when I picked it up on holiday I found it had capital letters randomly strewn throughout sentences, not a speech mark IN THE ENTIRE BOOK and as for the story line; it was so unbelievably incoherent and shit I was amazed. On closer inspection obviously someone (with no grasp of grammar or language) has just cobbled some ridiculous thoughts together and my well meaning DH actually spent a whole £6 on it.

This makes me really angry. I'm sure that there are perks to self publishing, but I really think there should be a warning somewhere so that you know that you could be buying utter drivel. It seems very unfair and almost fraudulent. I'm thinking I should create a coffee table compilation of my youngest child's most fantastical line drawings and charge unsuspecting victims customers £15 for a hardback edition.

IABU?

[NotYouNaanBread]

You can get 5 Star reviews for you book on Fiverr -

www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-shaffer/five-stars-for-five-dolla_b_3997107.html

[RuffWearer]

Incredibly hard in the cases I know of, MsTargaryen, and on minimal, frequently-cancelled interviews with footballers, who weren't really good talkers or able to do introspection even when you sat down together. Half the time the ghosts end up inventing a plausible-sounding narrative based on a few dates and newspaper headlines.

[MsTargaryen]

That does sound like hard work! There must be a lot of pressure to deliver on time too even if the footballer is as uncooperative as that!

[fuzzpig]

What I hate is when people talk about being a published author... and it turns out they self published. I've even seen it on TV - when I searched the names, the only things that came up were SP stuff.

I agree it doesn't always mean it's rubbish though!

[SolidGoldBrass]

I know quite a few good authors who self-publish. A lot of them have been (and sometimes still are) published by actual commercial publishing houses as well. However, given how hard actual publishers expect authors to work at promotion (and how very little most publishers will do to promote your work if you aren't already famous), a lot of authors think that they might as well do it themselves and basically keep all the money!

[stopfaffing]

Jut dipped in and read the first couple of pages of the Green Gables book. Its awful! Blimey, where on earth did all those five star reviews come from?

I give you another awful Amazon book; The Pram. Again, this one had lots of five star views and I liked the synopsis of the book; the story sounded intriguing. Oh dear, it was terrible . Such a shame.

Its only when you read a badly written book that you appreciate a good one.

If you are considering self-publishing, please, please, please get it properly proof-read first.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

I've just looked at The Pram on Amazon. For me there are 2 big markers that it wasn't going to be any good. One is that there is a big lump of 1 star reviews. IME with most decent books there will be a triangle of reviews with more 5 star gradually decreasing down to a few one star. And if you look at the 1 star reviews for The Pram, they're quite emphatic.

In contrast, I was looking at the reviews of a terrific book-by-a-MNer earlier and as well as many 5 stars it had just a couple of 1-stars, one of which just said 'not for me' and the other was something along the lines of 'the plot was good but the characters were smelly.'

So I reckon you can tell a lot from reviews even though it's true that there are a lot of very dubious 5 stars, if you look at what the more critical reviews are telling you.

The other red flag for The Pram is that the blurb basically tells the story of the book, which isn't what a blurb should do - it needs to give you some idea of what the book is about and hook you, but if it rambles on and on and tells you most of the story of the book it is clearly not done by a professional.